Metal flakes, in particular those made by rapid solidification, are useful in applications such as pigments, electromagnetic shielding, and powder metallurgical applications.
Up to this time, metal flakes have been made by producing foils by melt spinning or melt extraction processes. The foils which are produced must be broken down further to shorter length foils, called discontinuous foils. The discontinuous foils are then broken down further into flakes which are used in the application.
It would be advantageous to produce discontinuous foils directly from starting material without having to go through extra or separate processing.
The process of the present invention produces discontinuous foils directly from the starting material without extra or separate processing steps.